Perry's freeze on college tuition gets lukewarm response

Updated 11:15 pm, Monday, October 1, 2012

Gov. Rick Perry announces at Thomas Jefferson High School in Dallas his plan to make higher education more affordable and accessible for students.

Gov. Rick Perry announces at Thomas Jefferson High School in Dallas his plan to make higher education more affordable and accessible for students.

Photo: Katie Currid

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Perry's freeze on college tuition gets lukewarm response

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With an eye to the upcoming legislative session, Gov. Rick Perry on Monday called for freezing tuition rates for incoming freshmen at state universities during their first four years of college.

That may be a good option, some legislators responded, but they stopped short of endorsing it as an across-the-board mandate.

Speaking at a Dallas high school, Perry said freezing tuition would give young people financial stability and predictability as they plan to pay for college as well as "a very powerful incentive for you to get in and get out in that four-year period of time." He first mentioned the idea last month.

"More and more young Texans of all backgrounds are thinking of college as this vital component of their personal success story," Perry said. "As state officials, we have to do everything that we can to remove roadblocks."

Perry also proposed tying 10 percent of an institution's state funding to student outcomes rather than enrollment and reiterated his push for bachelor's degree options that cost $10,000 or less.

Zaffirini said lawmakers can learn from institutions in the state already locking in tuition rates, such as the University of Texas at Dallas, which started doing so in 2007. The University of Texas at El Paso has a similar program that is optional for students. She sees it as an option for university regents to consider because "one size does not fit all."

More predictability

But Zaffirini pointed out that tuition costs at UT-Dallas remain high, possibly out of reach for some students. This fall, an in-state UT-Dallas undergraduate student taking 12 credit hours paid $5,333, while a similar student at the University of Texas at Austin on average paid about $4,969.

House Higher Education Committee Chairman Rep. Dan Branch, R-Dallas, also said he thought the freeze idea has the potential to give students more predictability in paying for higher education and said every institution should offer it as an option.

"I don't think it should be the only way to price higher education," he added.

Perry called for tying 10 percent of universities' state funding to the number of students receiving degrees so universities have "some skin in the game."

"If you're not graduating your students, you'll get less state funding," he said. "This will encourage universities to do everything they can to help their students complete their degrees and graduate in a timely fashion."

Branch said the base budget proposal that legislators will begin working with in January will tie 10 percent of funding to outcomes, similar to Perry's proposal.

70% graduation rate?

"I'm hopeful that we'll move rapidly beyond 10 percent," Branch said. "I'm hoping at some point we can all be having a discussion about 25 percent of the funding based on outcomes."

University of Texas at Austin President Bill Powers has set a goal of raising the school's four-year graduation rate to 70 percent over the next five years, said UT spokesman Gary Susswein in a prepared statement.

"The state's funding formulas currently reward institutions that offer more credit hours each semester," he said. "Shifting the incentive toward degrees is something we would welcome."

Susswein's statement did not directly reference the tuition freeze proposal. In May, Powers spoke out against UT System regents' decision to freeze in-state undergraduate tuition at the flagship university for two years.

UT System Chancellor Francisco Cigarroa said in a statement Monday that he and the regents "are committed to improving student access and success and increasing productivity and efficiency throughout our system" and touted the two UT institutions that already allow locking in rates.

The Texas A&M University System - or its flagship university in College Station - could provide a comment Monday.